Thursday, March 29, 2007

The White House Doesn't Think the GOP Can Win in Delaware

Charles Copeland might want to get Karl Rove on the phone. Boy Genius and the once vaunted White House political operation don't think the GOP can win the Delaware governor's race in 2008.You might think this nugget of political intelligence might be hard to uncover. But it is found in a PowerPoint presentation to a staff meeting at the General Services Administration (GSA). This map of governors’ races in the 2007-2008 cycle lists Delaware as “Not Competitive.”I’m guessing that Charlie Copeland, who is considered the GOP’s leading candidate for governor in 2008, would not have wanted to learn that he doesn’t have a chance via a congressional hearing. But the PowerPoint presentation found its way from the GSA to Capitol Hill, and thus to headlines across the country.What does the GSA have to do with politics? That’s what the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was trying to figure out when GSA administrator Lurita Alexis Doan was called to testify yesterday.The GSA may be the most boring federal agency in existence; it manages federal government property, motor vehicle fleets and purchases of furniture and office equipment. So what was the White House political operation doing briefing the GSA staff on strategy for the 2008 election?As the Washington Post reports, Ms. Doan was not enlightening:

Under sharp questioning, Doan acknowledged attending the videoconference. She and up to 40 of the agency's Republican appointees scattered around the country watched a PowerPoint presentation by J. Scott Jennings, White House deputy director of political affairs, who works for Karl Rove.On at least 10 occasions, she testified that she could not recall asking employees to help the GOP or remember details of the presentation."I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit this, but I can say that I honestly don't have recollection of the presentation at all," she said.

The presentation may well have violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activities on government property. (Federal employees can’t even wear campaign buttons on the job.)It has become increasingly apparent that Bush and Rove have been politicizing everything that isn’t tied down in Washington; it seems that no corner of government is too trivial to be co-opted into their political machine. The unintended consequence is that their precious political intelligence has been opened to public inspection. And the Delaware GOP has found out via a congressional hearing that the governor’s race here has already been written off by the know-it-alls in Washington.

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Not only that but Karl Rove thinks Mike Castle might retire. In the the same PowerPoint check out page 25 - 2008 GOP House Defense, where Castle is listed as a secondary GOP "defense" with an asterisk, denoting "Member may not seek re-election."

You'd think that as the mission of every agency in the government was turned to political purposes by the Bushies someone, say a "moderate" Republican Congressman froma "safe seat" would have had the guts to stand up and say "Hey. This is wrong."